MEYBODI, ABU'L-FAŻL RAŠID-AL-DIN

 

MEYBODI, Abu’l-Fażl Rašid-al-Din (fl. early 12th century), Sunni scholar, mystic and author of the Kašf al-asrār wa ʿoddat al-abrār (Unveiling of mysteries and provision of the righteous), a monumental Persian Sufi commentary on the Qurʾān. His full name is variously given in two manuscripts of Kašf al-asrār as Abu’l-Fażl b. Aḥmad b. Abi Saʿd b. Aḥmad b. Mehrizad Meybodi, and Rašid-al-Din Abu’l-Fażl Aḥmad b. Abi Saʿd b. Moḥammad b. Aḥmad Mehrizad (see Meybodi, 1952-60, eds.’ Introd., I, p. i and VII, p. ii), whilst in a single manuscript of the Ketāb al-foṣul attributed to him it appears as al-Šayḵ al-Emām al-Ḥāfeẓ Rašid-al-Din Abu’l-Fażl al-Meybodi (Dānešpažuh, p. 44).

There is a dearth of biographical information available on Meybodi; according to his own statement, he began to write the Kašf al-asrār in 1126 (Meybodi, pp. 1331-339, I, p. 1). This makes it likely that he was born in the second half of the 11th century and died during the second quarter of the 12th century. It has been suggested that his father was Jamāl-al-Eslām Abu Saʿid b. Aḥmad b. Mehrizad (d. 1087), a native of Yazd (Afšār, 1961, p. 312). According to the histories of Yazd, Jamāl-al-Eslām was a scholar and mystic of some repute, whose tomb, built together with a ḵānaqāh in 1347, was the site of a number of miracles and continued to be visited until Safavid times. His children are described as having been pious ascetics (Moḥammad Mofid, III, pp. 621-24; Jaʿfari, pp. 120-21), and his descendants are said to have been mostly virtuous, learned, and ‘honored by sultans’ (Moḥammad Mofid, III, p. 624). Among the descendants of Jamāl-al-Eslām named by the histories are Ḡiāṯ-al-Din ʿAli Monši, Moʿin-al-Din Jamāl-al-Eslām, and Šehāb-al-Din ʿAli. Iraj Afšār has located the gravestone of Saʿid Mowaffaq-al-Din Abi Jaʿfar b. Abi Saʿd b. Aḥmad b. Mehrizad (d. 1174-75), who seems to be one of his sons (Afšār, 1967, pp. 191-92), and of a grand-daughter, presumed to be the daughter of our commentator and named Fāṭema bent al-Emām Saʿid Rašid-al-Din Abi’l-Fażl b. Abi Saʿd b. Aḥmad Mehrizad (Afšār, 1968, p. 440; idem, 1973, pp. 203-4, 205). The correspondence between these names and that of Rašid-al-Din certainly seem to confirm a direct link to Jamāl-al-Eslām and therefore also to the region of Yazd, while the nesba “Meybodi” indicates more precisely that he had either been born, or at some time settled, in the town of Meybod, situated some 60 km northwest of Yazd. The location of Fāṭema bent Rašid-al-Din’s tombstone in the Friday mosque (masjed-e jāmeʿ) at Meybod would appear to confirm this connection.

If Meybodi was indeed the son of Jamāl-al-Eslām we may assume that he was raised in an environment of learning and mysticism. After completing his elementary education locally, he would probably have traveled to some of the great centers of learning such as Damascus, Baghdad, Nishapur, Marv, or Herat, to increase his knowledge of Hadith, jurisprudence, and other Islamic sciences. At some point, he appears to have become closely acquainted with the teachings of the famous Hanbalite mystic Ḵᵛāja ʿAbd-Allāh Anṣāri of Herat (d. Ḏu’l-ḥejja 481/March 1089, see ʿABDALLĀH ANṢĀRI). Although it is not known if Meybodi ever met Ḵᵛāja ʿAbd-Allāh in person, it is clear from his constant reference to him as pir-e ṭariqat (master of the path) that he regarded him as his spiritual master. He was, moreover, profoundly influenced by Anṣāri’s dogmatic ideas. It is possible that, having traveled to Herat, he spent a period of his life in the circle of Anṣāri’s followers at the ḵānaqāh by his tomb at Gāzorgāh, a village northeast of Herat. Although none of the histories mention his presence there, the Kašf al-asrār certainly reveals its author’s familiarity with both the written and oral tradition of “Anṣāriyāt.”

There are other factors to indicate that Meybodi spent some time either in Herat or elsewhere in Khorasan. These include features of Khorasani, or more specifically Heravi, dialect in the Kašf al-asrār (the former, according to an as yet unpublished study of ʿAli Rawāqi in Tehran; the latter, according to Fekrat, 1999); familiarity with the commentaries of Abu ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān Solami (d. 1021) and Abu’l-Qāsem Qošayri (d. 1072), the Sawāneḥ of Aḥmad Ḡazāli (d. 1126), and the poetry of Sanāʾi (1131), all of which are cited (though not by name) in the Kašf al-asrār; a number of passages in common with the Rawḥ al-arwāḥ of Aḥmad Samʿāni (d. 1148), composed either just before or after Meybodi’s commentary (Ṣayfi; Purjawādi, 2000); and more generally, the influence of the doctrines and literary language of love mysticism, which at this time were blossoming in eastern Iran and which are fully evident in the mystical sections of the Kašf al-asrār (Keeler, 2006, chaps. 4 and 7). Presumably, our commentator must have died on his travels because no trace of his grave has yet been found in the region of Meybod.

Thus, until further biographical data emerges about Meybodi, we can do no more than speculate about his life. It is possible, however, to glean substantial information about his learning, doctrines, and interests from the text of the Kašf al-asrār itself. Meybodi was clearly a scholar of some standing in the religious sciences. His name, as it appears in the colophon of the Ketāb al-foṣul (ed. Dānešpažuh, p. 44) would suggest that he was a ḥāfeẓ (one who knows the Qurʾān by heart), and the facility with which he is able to cross reference Qurʾānic verses in the Kašf al-asrār, using the Qurʾān to comment on the Qurʾān, would confirm this. Evidently a proficient scholar of Hadith (moḥaddeṯ), he includes in his commentary numerous traditions of the Prophet and companions as well as of the Ahl al-bayt (on the latter see Rokni Yazdi, 1995). Meybodi was also, apparently, the author of an Arbaʿin or collection of forty Hadiths (Meybodi, 1952-60, V, p. 219), although no such work by him has yet been found. The number of sources cited in his work, his knowledge of Arabic, his eloquent use of Persian prose, and his numerous citations of Persian and Arabic poetry all attest to his erudition.

In jurisprudence (oṣul-al-feqh), Meybodi followed the school of Šāfeʿi, to whose authority he consistently refers on points of law. Unlike many Shafeʿites of his time, however, he did not adhere to the school of Abu’l-Ḥasan ʿAli Ašʿari in matters of theology (oṣul-al-din); on the contrary, he explicitly condemns Ashʿarites on two occasions in the Kašf al-asrār, firstly for being “deniers of the Divine attributes’ (1952-60, VIII, p. 486), and secondly for their belief that the Qurʾān is uncreated, but only in meaning (ibid, VIII, p. 507). As a Shafeʿite, Meybodi was in fact a fervent traditionalist who condemned all forms of speculative theology (kalām) as well as philosophy. He also espoused a number of Hanbalite doctrines, although in his commentary he never expressed any formal allegiance to that school, merely maintaining his position to be that of the ahl al-sonna wa’l-jamāʿa (in Persian, ahl-e sonnat wa jamāʿat). Among Hanbalite doctrines that he championed were: (A) the belief that God is in a direction, that direction being above (Kašf al-asrār I, p. 123, III, p. 29); (B) the belief that the Qurʾān was uncreated, not only in meaning but also in letters and sounds (ibid, II, p. 237, VIII, p. 507); and (C) particularly important in the context of a Qurʾān commentary, the insistence that the anthropomorphic expressions in the Qurʾān should be accepted as they are, without seeking to interpret them. He condemns as heretical metaphorical interpretations of the anthropomorphic verses by Muʿtazilites and others, and recommends that believers should accept whatever they hear from the Qurʾān, desisting from the “way of asking how” (rāh-e čegunagi; Kašf al-asrār III, p. 169, VI, p. 111). He maintains that this position, apparently equivalent to the doctrine of be-lā kayf, avoids the two extremes of denial of divine attributes (taʿṭil) on the one hand, and anthropomorphism (tašbih) on the other (ibid, III, p. 169, V, p. 374). Adherence to these traditionalist doctrines is, in Meybodi’s view, a sine qua non of spiritual realization. Thus he states: “The noble ones of the way and wayfarers on the path of truth are those whose hearts God kept pure of desires and innovation (bedʿat), who accepted what they heard, and went the way of submission (taslim). They purified their hearts from the world and its contamination, until the light of gnosis (maʿrefat) shone in their hearts and the springs of wisdom opened within them” (ibid, III, p. 625).

It is in his combining of traditionalism and mysticism that Meybodi may chiefly be regarded as a disciple of ʿAbd-Allāh Anṣāri. Yet an overall examination of the mystical doctrines of the Kašf al-asrār reveals that he drew on a vast array of Sufi sources, citing many famous figures in the history of Islamic mysticism such as Ḥasan Baṣri, Bāyazid Besṭāmi, Yaḥyā b. Moʿāḏ, Abu’l-Qāsem Jonayd, Abu Bakr Šebli, and Ḥosayn b. Manṣur Ḥallāj. Moreover, we find integrated in Meybodi’s work doctrines of Malālamatiya (the school of blame), fotowwa or javānmardi (the way of spiritual chivalry), and above all, of love mysticism (Keeler, 2006, chap. 4, pp. 115-16, chap. 6, pp. 168-72, chap. 7). It is particularly with regard to the latter that Meybodi can be said to have gone beyond the heritage of Anṣāri, for whilst there remains uncertainty regarding the status of love in the writings of the latter (e.g., it is placed among the ʿelal al-maqāmāt “deficiencies of the stations” in Anṣāri, 1956, pp. 169-70, and at an intermediary stage in Anṣāri, 1962, pp. 71-72, but at the ultimate stage encompassing all the others in Anṣāri, 1954, p. 30), there can be no question of its central importance to the mystical teachings of the Kašf al-asrār. Perhaps Meybodi felt more at liberty to express these doctrines in the wake of Aḥmad Ḡazāli’s seminal treatise on love, the Sawāneḥ, and in a climate in which other authors such as ʿAyn al-Qożāt Hamadāni, Aḥmad Samʿāni, and Sanāʾi were freely writing on the subject. One indication of this change of climate in the early 12th century is the application of the word ʿešq to the love of God, which had remained controversial during the 11th century, and was criticised by Hojviri (pp. 400-1), and Qošayri (1966, p. 615). The word ʿešq is not to be found in any of Anṣāri’s formal written works. Yet Meybodi, like Aḥmad Ḡazāli, applies the word not only to the love of human beings for God (Meybodi, 1952-60, passim), including the Prophet’s love for Him (ibid, I, p. 53), but also for God’s love for human beings (ibid, I, p. 142, III, p. 732).

Love mysticism, however, did not manifest itself as one school of thought; it was rather a movement that embraced a number of different approaches to the way of love. Thus we find that the mystical doctrines of the Kašf al-asrār do not include a metaphysic of love as expounded by Aḥmad Ḡazāli (A. Ḡazāli, 1980). For Meybodi, love is simply a purifying fire which, through the pain of separation from, and intense longing for the divine Beloved, gradually frees the seeker from all other than Him (Meybodi, 1952-60, I, pp. 674-75, V, p. 727, VI, pp. 112-13). Underlying this doctrine of love in Meybodi’s teachings are two theological dogmas. The first is a firm belief in the limits of human reason, a firm conviction that the rational faculty (ʿaql) can of itself never attain true experiential knowledge of God (ibid, II, pp. 508-9, III, p. 294); and the second is the doctrine of God’s pre-ordination and pre-determination of all things (qażāʾ, qadar, or taqdir), which here includes not only human acts but also spiritual states and mystical realisation, which can only be attained through the intervention of divine grace (Kašf al-asrār II, p. 496, IV, pp. 236, 279, 441). These two doctrines, combined with love, constitute what might be called the “mystical theology” of Meybodi (Keeler, 2006, chap. 7).

In common with many Sufis, Meybodi understands the goal of the mystical way to be annihilation of self (fanāʾ) and subsisting in God (baqāʾ; Kašf al-asrār I, p. 60, II, p. 186), and he includes in his esoteric commentary numerous explanations of the different states and stations on the path (e.g., ibid, II, pp. 273, 400, III, p. 156, X, pp. 178, 274), as well as of what might be called the “spiritual psychology” of the human being (e.g., ibid, I, pp. 581-82, III, p. 557, VII, pp. 248-49, IX, p. 469). Nonetheless, the main preoccupation of his mystical interpretations seems to be with conveying his belief in the ineffability and omnipotence of God, and the pre-eminence of love. These three prevailing doctrines, expounded in great detail through the esoteric sections of the Kašf al-asrar, would later become essential themes in many works of mystical literature in Persian, including the poetry of Farid-al-Din ʿAṭṭār and Jalāl-al-Din Moḥammad Rumi.

Works. Meybodi’s magnum opus, and the only significant work of his pen that has survived, is his monumental Persian commentary on the Qurʾān, the Kašf al-asrār wa ʿoddat al-abrār. At ten volumes in its published edition, it is one of most extensive Persian commentaries, second only in size to the Shiʿi commentary of Abu’l-Fotuḥ Rāzi (d. 12th cent.). It is also possibly the earliest extant example of a complete Persian Qurʾān commentary with a substantial mystical content. In fact, it is arguable that Meybodi’s commentary established the genre of Sufi tafsir writing in Persian; certainly, the style and content of the mystical sections of the Kašf al-asrār were to influence several later Sufi commentaries, including the Ḥadāʾeq al-ḥaqāʾeq of Moʿin-al-Din Farāhi Heravi (d. 1502), and Mawāheb-e ʿaliya of Kamāl-al-Din Wāʿeẓ Kāšefi (d. 1504). As one of the most popular Persian commentaries, it has been preserved in over fifty manuscripts (listed in Monzawi, I, pp. 55-56; Masarrat, 1995).

According to Meybodi’s introduction to the Kašf al-asrār, his work was based on an earlier commentary by Ḵᵛāja ʿAbd-Allāh Anṣāri. Meybodi explains that he read this commentary, and, despite its eloquence and depth of meaning, found it to be too short, and thus he decided to expand upon it (Meybodi, 1952-60, I, p. 1). Passages directly ascribed to Anṣāri are preceded by the words Pir-e ṭariqat goft (the master of the path said), or more respectfully with his laqab: Šayḵ al-Eslām Ḵᵛāja ʿAbd-Allāh Anṣāri goft. They are usually to be found in the mystical sections of the Kašf al-asrār, and for the most part comprise monājāt (intimate prayers), aphorisms, and short theological sermons, and actually include little material that could strictly be defined as exegetical. Anṣāri’s own commentary is no longer extant for the purposes of comparison, and since Meybodi himself seems to have emulated his master’s eloquent writing style in much of his commentary, it is difficult to ascertain how much of the Kašf al-asrār derives from Anṣāri’s original. In any case, as mentioned above, it is evident that Meybodi drew on a great number of sources for the writing of his work (discussed in Keeler, 2006, pp. 20-22). Among Sufi commentaries, he was particularly dependent on Qošayri’s Laṭāʾef al-ešārāt, from which he derived not only exegetical ideas, but also numerous passages, some of which he translated, often with considerable expansion, into Persian, while others he left verbatim in the Arabic. Not surprisingly, Meybodi never once credited the name of this work’s famous Ashʿarite author. It is probably due to the frequency with which Anṣāri’s name is mentioned in the Kašf al-asrār that for a long time the commentary continued to be known as Anṣāri’s tafsir.

A unique feature of the Kašf al-asrār is its threefold structure. The Qurʾān is firstly divided into sessions of convenient length, consisting of anything between five and fifty verses. The commentary on these verses is then presented in three nawbats (lit., turns): The first one consists of a concise rendering of the verses in Persian; the second nawbat is the conventional or exoteric commentary; and the third is the esoteric commentary. Looking more closely at the content of Nawbat I, we find that, rather than being a “literal Persian translation” of the verses (Storey, I, part 2, pp. 1190), the Persian renderings which Meybodi presents often constitute more of a succinct interpretation of the verses (e.g., Qurʾān 1:1, 6 and 7; Meybodi, 1952-60, I, p. 2). Apart from its interest as an early and eloquent verse-by-verse rendering of the Qurʾān in Persian, the Nawbat I of Meybodi’s Kašf al-asrār is also valued as a source for the study of early new Persian, providing numerous examples of archaic words, the meanings of which are clear from their Arabic equivalents (for examples see Šariʿat, 1994, pp. 12-16, 752-68).

The Nawbat II sections of the Kašf al-asrār include all the components that are usually to be found in a conventional Qurʾān commentary, such as discussions of relevant traditions, circumstances of revelation (asbāb al-nozul), legal rulings (aḥkām), abrogating and abrogated verses (nāseḵ and mansuḵ), grammar, lexicography, stories of the prophets (qeṣaṣ al-anbiāʾ) and so on. Although the Kašf al-asrār is described as a Persian commentary, its Nawbat II sections have a substantial Arabic content. This is an indication that the Kašf al-asrār, like other commentaries written in Persian, was not solely intended for an audience lacking in Arabic literacy (see EXEGESIS iii. in Persian). Interestingly, the proportion of Arabic in the Nawbat II sections gradually increases during the course of the work, reaching around 80 percent or more towards the end of the commentary.

Meybodi describes the esoteric sections of his commentary, Nawbat III, as comprising “allegories of mystics” (romūz-e ʿārefān), allusions of Sufis (ešārāt-e ṣufiān), and “subtle associations of preachers” (laṭāʾef-e moḏakerān). This broad definition gives some idea of the scope and variety of its content, which includes, in addition to esoteric interpretations of selected verses from each session: passages of encomium to God, the Prophet or the Qurʾān; explanations of different aspects of Sufi doctrine; sayings of and anecdotes about great and less-known mystics; aphorisms; poetry; prayers and invocations (monājāt); and passages of narrative relating, from a mystical point of view, events in the lives of the prophets. In contrast to Nawbat II, Nawbat III is composed almost entirely in Persian with only a small proportion of Arabic, consistently throughout the commentary. Moreover, the prose styles of the two Nawbats are markedly different. In Nawbat II the prose appears to be plain and functional, as in many early Persian Sufi works such as the Kašf al-maḥjub of Hojviri, and the Šarḥ al-taʿarrof of Mostamli. Nawbat III, however, boasts an artistic, poetical style of prose, richly embellished with imagery and metaphors, often incorporating passages of metered and rhyming prose (sajʿ), interspersed with poetry and constantly interwoven with Qurʾānic quotations that are skilfully integrated into the narrative. Combining these elements with passages of dramatic storytelling, Meybodi developed a compelling didactic prose style of enduring appeal. This probably accounts for the continuing influence and popularity of the Kašf al-asrār, and is no doubt the reason why it is still considered to be one of the monuments of Persian literature.

The threefold format of the Kašf al-asrār provided Meybodi with the scope he needed to develop fully the rhetorical style of his esoteric commentary. At the same time, it allowed him to maintain a boundary between two clearly defined exegetical realms: those of exoteric interpretation, based largely on traditional material (tafsir be’l-maʾṯur), with a limited amount of reasoned judgement (tafsir be’l-raʾy; Meybodi, 1952-60, X, p. 679); and of esoteric interpretation, derived from divine illuminations and mystical unveilings (mokāšafāt). From the latter realm, the rational faculty was, in Meybodi’s view, to be entirely banished, a point which he underlines from time to time in his Nawbat III commentary with brief passages condemning taʾwil, that is, metaphorical interpretations of the anthropomorphic verses of the Qurʾān (e.g., Meybodi, 1952-60, VI, p. 111, IX, p. 486). It seems, however, that once the rational faculty is safely at bay, and the exegete is in the state of receiving inspiration rather than applying reason, the shackles of literalism may be allowed to fall away, and it is noteworthy that the esoteric sections of Meybodi’s commentary actually include some surprisingly free metaphorical and allegorical interpretations of the Qurʾānic verses (e.g., Meybodi, 1952-60, III, p. 410, V, pp. 671, 729, VI, p. 274). In fact, the mystical interpretations of Kašf al-asrār represent a significant hermeneutical development as compared to earlier Sufi tafsirs, and for this reason Meybodi’s esoteric commentary is now regarded as a key source for the study of the medieval Sufi exegesis, alongside the Arabic commentaries of Solami, Qošayri and Ruzbehān Baqli.

Apart from the Kašf al-asrār the only extant work bearing Meybodi’s name is the Ketāb al-foṣul, a short treatise that has apparently survived in only one manuscript. The treatise comprises an introduction and seven sections, each comprising three chapters, which discuss the ideal virtues of important figures of state and religion, starting with sultans and ending with scholars and qāżis. According to the colophon, the work was originally composed by Abu’l-Qāsem Yusof b. Ḥosayn b. Yusof Heravi, and then “excerpted” or “drawn upon” (estaḵrajahu) by al-Šayḵ al-Emām al-Ḥāfeẓ Rašid-al-Din Abu’l-Fażl Meybodi (ed., Dānešpažuh, p. 44). The chapters usually begin with a few lines of Arabic, presumably the extract taken from Heravi’s original, which are then followed by an expanded and elaborated translation into Persian, presumably the work of Meybodi. The prose style of the Ketāb al-foṣul has several characteristics in common with the third nawbats of the Kašf al-asrār, namely the use of rhyming prose, the inclusion of Arabic and Persian poetry, and the interweaving of Qurʾānic quotations into the narrative. In general, however, the prose style is not as appealing as that of the Nawbat III sections of the Qurʾān commentary. In terms of content, there are a few similarities. Although there is little sign of love mysticism in this work, the devotional fervour is there, with eulogies upon the Prophet and his family, descriptions of nature and the cosmos, and some emphasis on divine pre-ordination.

Bibliography:

Primary Sources.

Ḵᵛāja ʿAbd-Allāh Anṣāri, Ketāb ʿelal al-maqāmāt, ed. and tr. Serge de Laugier de Beaurecueil as “Un petit traité de ʿAbdallāh Anṣāri sur les déficiences inhérentes à certains demeures spirituelles,” in Henri Massé, ed., Mélanges offerts à Louis Massignon, Damascus, 3 vols., Damascus, 1956, I, pp. 153-71; tr. repr. in idem, 1985.

Idem, Manāzel al-sāʾerin, ed. and tr. Serge de Laugier de Beaurecueil as Manāzil al-sāʾirīn: Let étapes des itinérants vers Dieu, Cairo, 1962; tr. repr. in idem, 1985.

Idem, Ketāb-e ṣad meydān, ed. and tr. Serge de Laugier de Beaurecueil as “Une ébauche persane des Manāzil as-Sāʾirīn: le Kitāb-e Ṣad maydān de ʿAbdollāh Anṣāri,” Mélanges Islamologuesd’Archéologie Orientale 2, 1954, pp. 1-90; tr. repr. in idem, 1985.

Idem, Chemins de Dieu: trois traités spirituels, tr. Serge de Laugier de Beaurecueil, Paris, 1985.

Aḥmad Ḡazāli, Sawāneḥ, ed. Helmut Ritter as Ahmad Ghazzālī’s Aphorismen über die Liebe, Istanbul, 1942; revised new ed. Nasrollah Pourjavady (Naṣr-Allāh Purjawādi), Tehran, 1980; tr. with an introduction and glossary by Nasrollah Pourjavady as Sawāniḥ: Inspirations from the World of Pure Spirits, London, 1986.

ʿAli b. ʿOṯmān Jollābi Hojviri, Kašf al-maḥjūb, ed. Valentin Zhukovskiĭ. Lenningrad, 1926; tr. Reynold Alleyn Nicholson as Kashf al-maḥjūb: The Oldest Persian Treatise on Sufism. London, 1911.

Jaʿfar b. Moḥammad Jaʿfari, Tāriḵ-e Yazd, ed. Iraj Afšār, Tehran, 1959.

Abu’l-Fażl Rašid-al-Din Meybodi, Kašf al-asrār wa ʿoddat al-abrār, ed. ʿAli-Aṣḡar Ḥekmat et al., 10 vols., Tehran, 1952-60, reprinted several times.

Idem, Ketāb al-foṣul, ed. Moḥammad-Taqi Dānešpažuh as “Foṣul-e Rašid-al-Din Meybodi,” FIZ 16, 1969, pp. 44-89.

Moḥammad Mofid Mostawfi Bāfqi, Jāmeʿ-e mofidi, ed. Iraj Afšār, 3 vols., Tehran, 1961-64.

Abu’l-Qāsem ʿAbd-al-Karim b. Hawāzen Qošayri, al-Resāla al-Qošayriya fi ʿelm al-taṣawwof, Cairo, 1966; tr. with introduction and commentary by Richard Gramlich as Das Sendschreiben al-Qušayrīs über das Sufitum, Stuttgart, Wiesbaden, 1989; tr. Barbara Von Schlegel as The Principles of Sufism, Berkeley, 1990.

Idem, Laṭāʾef al-ešārāt, ed. Ebrāhim Basyuni, 3 vols. Cairo, 1968-71; new ed. Cairo, 1981-83.

Abu Ebrāhim Esmāʿil b. Moḥammad Mostamli Boḵāri, Šarḥ-e Ketāb al-taʿarrof le-maḏhab ahl al-taṣawwof, ed. Moḥammad Rowšan, Tehran, 1984.

Abu ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān Moḥammad Solami, Ḥaqāʾeq al-tafsir. MS British Museum Or. 9433; ed. Sayyed ʿEmrān, Beirut, 2001; comments attributed to Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādeq, ed. with introduction by Paul Nwyia, in “Le tafsîr mystique attribué à Ğaʿfar Ṣâdiq,” Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph 43, 1967, pp. 179-230; comments of Ebn ʿAṭāʾ Adami, ed. Paul Nwyia, in idem, ed., Noṣus al-Ṣufiya ḡayr manšura, le-Šaqiq al-Balḵi, Ebn ʿAṭāʾ, al-Neffāri/Trois oeuvres inédites de mystiques musulmanes: Šaqīq Bal˙ī, Ibn ʿAṭā, Niffārī. Beirut, 1973; comments attributed to Ḥosayn b. Manṣur Ḥallāj, ed. Louis Massignon, in idem, Essai sur les origines du lexique technique de la mystique musulmane, Paris, 1922; tr. Benjamin Clark as Essay on the Origin of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1998.

All these extracts have been reprinted in a collection of Solami’s works, ed. Naṣr-Allāh Purjawādi as Majmuʿa-ye āṯār-e Abu ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Solami, 2 vols., Tehran, 1990.

Secondary sources.

Iraj Afšār “Eḥtemāl-i dar bāb-e moʾallef-e Kašf al-asrār,” Yaḡmā 14/7, 1961, p. 312.

Idem, “Sang-e qabr-e barādar-e moʾallef-e Kašf al-asrār,” Yaḡmā 20/4 1967, pp. 190-92.

Idem, “Doḵtar-e Meybodi,” Yaḡmā 21/8, 1968, p. 440.

Idem, “Two 12th Century Gravestones of Yazd in Mashhad and Washington,” Studia Iranica 2/2, 1973, pp. 203-11.

Annabel Keeler, Sufi Hermeneutics: The Qurʾan Commentary of Rashīd al-Dīn Maybudī, Oxford, 2006.

Idem, “Persian, Language of the Heart in Maybudī’s Kashf al-asrār,” in Fereydun Vahman and Claus V. Pederson, eds., Religious Texts in Iranian Languages, Copenhagen, 2007.

Moḥammad-Āṣaf Fekrat, “Gozāreš-e wāžaʾi-e čand az Kašf al-asrār bā tawajjoh ba-fārsi-e Heravi,” in Yad-Allāh Jalāl Pendari, ed., Yād-nāma-ye Abu’l-Fażl Rašid-al-Din Meybodi, 2 vol., n.p., 1999, I, pp. 116-27.

Ḥosayn Masarrat, Ketāb-šenāsi-e Rašid-al-Din Meybodi, Tehran, 1995.

Aḥmad Monzawi, Fehrest-e nosḵahā-ye ḵaṭṭi-e fārsi, 6 vols., Tehran, 1969-74. ʿAli-Moḥammad Možda, “Kašf al-asrār wa ʿoddat al-abrār,” Majalla-ye Dāneškada-ye adabiyāt-e Širāz, 1/3, 1958, pp. 42-53; 5, pp. 92-127.

Yad-Allāh Jalāl Pendari, ed., Yād-nāma-ye Abu’l-Fażl Rašid-al-Din Meybodi, 2 vols., n.p., 1999.

Naṣr-Allāh Purjawādi, Solṭān-e ṭariqat, Tehran, 1979.

Idem, “Eṣālat-e Ṣad meydān-e Ḵᵛāja ʿAbd-Allāh Anṣāri,” in ʿAli Ašraf Ṣādeqi, ed., Yād-nāma-ye Doktor Aḥmad Tafażżoli/Tafazzoli Memorial Volume, Tehran, 2000, pp. 129-42.

Moḥammad-Mahdi Rokni Yazdi, Laṭeʾif-i az Qorʾān-e karim, Mashad, 1993.

Idem, Jelwahā-ye tašayyoʿ dar Kašf al-asrār-e Meybodi. Tehran, 1995.

Ḏabiḥ-Allāh Ṣafā, Tāriḵ-e adabiyāt dar Irān II, Tehran, 1960, pp. 30-32.

Moḥammad-Jawād Šariʿat, Fehrest-e Kašf al-asrār wa ʿoddat al-abrār, Tehran, 1984.

ʿAli-Aṣḡar Ṣayfi, “Taʾṯir-e Rawḥ al-arwāḥ dar tafsir-e Kašf al-asrār,” in Yād-Allāh Jalāl Pendari, ed., Yād-nāma-ye Abu’l-Fażl Rašid-al-Din Meybodi, 2 vols., Yazd, n.p., 1999, pp. 356-94.

Charles A. Storey, Persian Literature: A Bio-bibliographical Survey, 2 vols., London, 1970-72, II, pp. 1190-91.

July 20, 2009

(Annabel Keeler)

Originally Published: July 20, 2009

Last Updated: July 20, 2009